


Quiet Battles

by Puckk



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Big Brother Lucifer, Brother Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puckk/pseuds/Puckk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uriel turned towards him, wide eyed and guilty, but still with the usual hint of mischief in her eyes.<br/>“Father has a gift for you, Michael.”</p><p>“I think I’ve had quite enough of his gifts,” Michael murmured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovelysalem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelysalem/gifts).



> Hey friend who I'm gifting this to (and all others, as well)! So I realized afterwards that you wanted this to take place during season 1, but as the terrible person I am, I haven't seen all of season 1, so you get this story instead which takes place pre-season 1 (pre Lucifer's fall, pre God's disappearance... though he isn't around all that much). 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

 

“How many times are you going to do that, exactly?” Michael asked.

 

Gabriel sighed, dramatically, before again starting to sing the same song that he had been singing for over twenty minutes. That same song that felt like something pulling inside Michael’s chest, some buried feeling, a memory perhaps. Michael let go of that train of thought as he rose from the table.

 

Gabriel abruptly cut himself off and stared up at Michael. “Where are you going?”

 

_Away from your incessant chanting_ Michael thought, irritably. “I’ll be back soon.”

 

Gabriel squinted, or maybe he glared- it was hard to tell with four year olds. Regardless, his face scrunched up in a way that Michael was fairly sure signalled dislike. “Don’t leave me,” he said, his voice holding unexpected gravity.

 

Blinking, Michael stared down at the child that was his brother, the words and the intention and those large, dark eyes bearing down on him. He swallowed roughly. “Would you like to join me, then?”

 

With a shrug, Gabriel snapped out of his solemn interlude and abruptly flopped onto his back and started singing again. Loudly.

 

Michael sighed.

 

 

 

 

It had been a regular day, with nothing of particular interest taking place. Michael hadn’t seen Gabriel in months, although his presence in the back of his mind remained just as sullen and vital as it had been for years. Michael was making his way through a crowded, dusty market, colourful overhangs blowing in the breeze, lingering on a selection of peaches, when he felt Gabriel’s presence in his mind… lessen.

 

He frowned, still staring at the peaches as he attempted to analyze what had happened. Gabriel was still there, that same feeling that connected them as it had at the beginning had yet to wane or waver but it just felt… smaller, somehow. Less noticeable, harder to identify for what it was.

 

Troubled, Michael picked a peach, handed over some change and made his way towards the open air.

 

 

 

 

The first thing Michael felt as he folded his wings in and landed in the long grass was that Gabriel wasn’t alone. He had landed outside of a small cabin on a large piece of land that looked to be an old ranch. Inside he could feel his sister, Uriel, as well as his curiously lessened brother.

 

Intrigued, he went inside without knocking. Uriel turned towards him, wide eyed and guilty but still with the usual hint of mischief in her eyes. “Father has a gift for you, Michael.”

 

“I think I’ve had quite enough of his gifts,” Michael murmured, attempting to look past Uriel. Uriel had shifted her body in such a way that she was clearly hiding something, and if his feelings were correct then that something should be his brother. “Uriel.”

 

His sister shrugged. “If you think you’re ready?” She grinned and stepped aside with flare to reveal… nothing. Uriel laughed, bent down low and picked Gabriel up off the floor before setting him on the kitchen counter. Michael stared at their brother- dark hair, large dark eyes, and a distinctly displeased expression on his small face. That feeling in the back of his mind swelled as they made eye contact.

 

“What have you done?” Michael asked Uriel, eyes still fixed on their brother. Gabriel himself seemed less than keen to be involved on the conversation and jumped off the counter, face-planting on the floor. He immediately started sobbing. Michael knelt by Gabriel and set a gentle hand on his back.

 

Uriel laughed, “your twin, your problem, brother.” She started to walk towards the open door before she hesitated and turned back, hair glowing around her face where it caught the sun. “Our eldest may know what to do.”

 

Michael looked up at her, gently stroking Gabriel’s back as he quietly started hiccoughing. Uriel nodded softly and walked out into the sunlight, wings appearing in a flash as she flew off. Michael looked down at Gabriel who had stopped making any noise at all and simply gazed up at Michael.

 

“Come on then,” Michael said, offering his arms. Gabriel climbed into lap; arms wrapped around his neck and chin set firmly on his shoulder. Michael took a breath and lifted him up. The small weight was an odd comfort, like any of the many burdens his Father had gifted him with. Taking care of his brother had always been a shared burden, with Gabriel having taken up most of the slack. It seemed it was his turn now.

 

Slowly, unwittingly enjoying having Gabriel so close, Michael walked through the door and into the hot sun, stretched his wings, and jumped.

 

 

 

 

Michael had been around since the dawn of time, and although he had his brothers and sisters and his father, most of his time had been spent in silent contemplation, interspersed with battles and recovery. Having a child does not lend itself well to contemplation.

 

“Don’t eat that.”

 

Gabriel looked up from the book that was half in his mouth, having gotten bored of singing. “Why?”

 

“Because I told you to,” Michael said.

 

“Why?”

 

Michael did not glare down at a four year old. Michael was an angel as old as time itself. He was power, grace, and violence incarnate. He would not play this game with his small, immature, ridiculous brother.

 

Gabriel, sensing victory, smirked around the book.

 

“What would Father say?” Michael asked. Gabriel frowned, took the book carefully from his mouth and tilted his head. Then he threw the book at Michael. It hit his shins and Michael frowned down at it.

 

“Doesn’t matter, Father isn’t here,” Gabriel said. The statement seemed to take some of the air out of his sails and he stared down, playing with his feet morosely. Something that felt suspiciously like guilt crept into Michael’s stomach and made its home there. Dealing with his brother as an adult often felt like a constant game that tested his resolve on the best of days, but when it came to his brother as a child he could barely handle the whiplash from his emotions.

 

“Let’s go out then,“ said Michael, tiredly.

 

Gabriel looked up and smiled.

 

Despite himself, Michael smiled back.

 

 

 

 

The market was abuzz with activity despite the hot afternoon sun beating down. Michael and Gabriel walked hand in hand past stalls full of fruits, nuts, and meats as well as scarves, shirts, and dresses. Different languages rang out as people walked past, children racing between legs and laughing.

 

“What would you like?” asked Michael, distracted by a small girl who peered out at him from under a table covered in layers of glittering bangles, necklaces, and rings. Gabriel tugged on his hand and Michael obligingly let go and watched as he crept over to the girl and sat beside her in her hiding place.

 

Hesitating, Michael became surrounded by the crowded sea of people who jostled him as they went about their business. “Gabriel?” He called, shoving past people to get back to the table where he found his brother and the girl were gone.

 

Angrily, he called out, “Gabriel!” before he remembered that even though his ability to communicate with his brother without words was gone, his sense of his brother was still there, if muted. Quickly he tracked the sense of his twin through the market and out onto a nearby street where he found the two of them sitting in front of boarded up shop eating peaches. The girl ran as Michael slowed down, fear in her eyes, but Gabriel just rolled his eyes at him.

 

“Peach?” He asked, eyes twinkling, but Michael was still unsettled and filled with a nameless frustration.

 

“What were you thinking?” He yelled, running a hand through his hair. “You are smarter than this.”

 

With a grimace, Gabriel finished his peach and threw the pit onto the dusty ground. “I think you used to be more fun than this, brother,” he said, standing up.

 

“If you would do what I told you to…”

 

“I’m not a child!”

 

Michael’s eyebrows rose and he forced out a laugh. “Oh you aren’t, are you? I’d say that’s exactly what you are.”

 

Clenching his fists, Gabriel stared up at him. “Leave me, then! If you’re so mad, just leave!”

 

“I...,” Michael frowned slowly. “Gabriel, you are my brother. I would never leave you. I just wish you would not be so...” he trailed off, unsure.

 

Gabriel stared at him for a long time, but he was only a child and the heat could take the energy from anyone. Michael held out a hand and reluctantly Gabriel took it, letting his brother lead them away.

 

 

 

 

“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked for the seventh time.

 

Michael let his head slowly fall until his forehead was pressing against the pages of his book. Children were exhausting. “Gabriel please, I told you, we must find out how to fix you.”

 

Gabriel stiffened and Michael immediately regretted his words. “I don’t need fixing! I’m fine!” He yelled and stalked away.

 

Michael closed his eyes. He had been looking and asking and researching but every day felt like a different challenge on top of the overall challenge. Gabriel was his brother. Michael used to know what that meant.

 

With a heavy sigh, he pulled himself up and closed the book before heading off after Gabriel. The small sense of his brother that hummed in the back of his mind gave Michael the distinct impression that his brother was sulking under the apple tree nearby.

 

When Michael found him, Gabriel was nestled in the branches. It was cool and cloudy outside. “Gabriel, please.”

 

Gabriel’s eyes looked down at him, wide and dark and accusing. “I can’t hear you anymore.”  


“I know, brother,” Michael sighed, “that’s what I’m trying to fix.”

 

Gabriel nodded absently to himself. “Why am I the one that needs fixing?”

 

“Because you’re the only one that’s changed, brother,” said Michael.

 

“Are you sure?” asked Gabriel.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It was boring, waiting around constantly for Michael to do whatever it was he was doing and Gabriel was only becoming increasingly frustrated.

 

Sometimes he would sit and stare at him, wonder what had happened, wonder where those half feelings came from, wonder where his missing memories had gone to.

 

Sometimes he went outside, lay down beside the apple tree and stared up at the sky. On those times he would think about a father whom he couldn’t quite remember and a brother that seemed like a stranger, but a stranger that he loved with a fierceness that scared him. Once in a while he even remembered another brother, bright and beautiful, and that memory never failed to bring a smile to his face.

 

This time, he climbed up into the apple tree, feeling subdued and sad and heavy. He felt that if he stayed on the ground it would simply open up and pull him down, keep him within it like a treasured gift. He couldn’t do that to his brother though, so he climbed instead.

 

Michael found him later, the sunset blazing red, orange, and blue tongues of light spilling across the grassy fields. A gentle rain had started, pattering on the leaves around him.

 

This time, Michael simply climbed up into the tree beside him, and Gabriel let his head fall heavy against his brother’s chest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closing the blinds against the brightness of the moon, Michael turned back to Gabriel, asleep on the bed. In sleep he looked as Michael rarely remembered him – quiet, at peace, as he had been so many millennia ago. Michael loved him easily like this.

 

He heard wings outside. Quietly he closed the door to leave Gabriel to sleep and went to meet his sister on the porch. She was looking out at the moon, which reflected on her dark skin, her dark eyes, shimmered in hair that was carefully and precisely braided.

 

“Our sister has told you, then,” Michael said, as he leaned on the railing to gaze out at the moon as well.

 

“There is little she keeps from me,” Raphael said, voice smooth and low.  “Why do you not seek aid where aid is offered?”

 

“I believed myself capable of handling my own twin,” Michael sighed, aware of his own use of past tense. Raphael always did make him feel like a child. “Perhaps that is not the case.”

 

“That does not make him less of you, nor you less of him,” Raphael smiled, and finally turned towards him. Michael kept his gaze stubbornly on the moon. “You are a warrior, and you look for battles where there are none and create battles when you are dissatisfied with the lack.”

 

He felt her gentle eyes boring into the side of his head. “Your brother is not a battle you should be fighting.”

 

Unable to look at her, Michael’s gaze shifted from the moon to the city, lights sparking and winking from afar, so many people, families, blood, all of Father’s wonders banded together.

 

When he looked back, she was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked into Michael’s neck as they flew. Michael simply held on tighter and kept flying.

 

Gabriel didn’t bother asking again, turning his head away from Michael so he could look at the landscape below. It seemed like they had been flying forever; over forests full of orange and red and yellow, over deserts shimmering gold and flat and as far as the eye could see, over oceans with whales breaching and birds skimming fish from the surface. Now as they crossed above the mountains, covered in snow and ice, Gabriel squirmed.

 

He didn’t want to just  _see_ the mountains.

 

Michael frowned and his arms tightened but Gabriel wasn’t to be dissuaded. With a great breath, he pushed down and under Michael’s arms as Michael grabbed for him. The air took Gabriel’s breath as he tried to focus – he could fly like Michael, he knew he could, nevertheless he started to panic as he fell further and further, air deafening in his ears and stealing his breath, blinding his eyes with tears.

 

“Michael!” He started to yell as he flailed, confused and scared, until he felt himself be caught and quickly held to Michael’s chest. He grabbed onto Michael’s shirt fiercely as he yelled, terrified, “why can’t I fly? Where are my wings? Michael!”

 

Quickly they descended onto the mountain, where Gabriel was set down but he refused to give up his grip on Michael’s shirt. Angrily wiping his wet eyes on his sleeve he pulled at Michael again. “Where are my wings? Where are my wings?”

 

Michael looked at a loss, trying to pet down his hair and cupping his cheeks. Gabriel pulled away furiously, “tell me, Michael! Tell me!”

 

“I don’t know,” Michael admitted, trying again to grab at Gabriel who dodged him.

 

Gabriel stared him down, hands in fists as he tried to catch his breath. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled to himself, slowly losing steam, the cold wet air stinging his cheeks. “I had wings.” He rubbed at his arms, head down.

 

“Gabriel, please.” Michael still had his arms out, as if to comfort Gabriel when Gabriel wanted none of it. He was still so angry, but he was also confused and he wasn’t sure why.

 

“Where are we going?” He asked, although he didn’t really care. Everything was so strange and clouded. He felt as though he was supposed to know things that he didn’t know, and he knew things he wasn’t sure how he knew, and then there was Michael. Michael, who he knew was his brother, who made him angry and annoyed just looking at him, but at the same time whom he missed so fiercely that he couldn’t believe he was there, standing in front of him, expression pained.

 

“To get help.”

 

Gabriel snorted, annoyed and frustrated and still with that strange chasm of loneliness that felt colder than the mountain that had made his feet numb, that he associated with Michael.

 

Silently he stared before walking over the snow-covered rock, giving in to his brother. He felt as though it wasn’t the first time.

 

 

  

 

 

Michael reluctantly set Gabriel down on the sand, waves crashing against the rocks as they waited. Having Gabriel so close felt like when they were young- twins, inseparable. At the same time, it was strange seeing his brother as a child while he, himself, was an adult. Was his brother always this expressive, this open? Had he always been this full of life? He watched as Gabriel sat at the edge of the ocean, watching the tide creep ever closer to his feet. What role had Michael himself played in who he was now?

 

Michael sensed Lucifer behind him before he heard his wings flapping, landing with silent feet upon the sand. Gabriel was up and beside him in an instant, equal parts fascinated and excited.

 

“Hello, Gabriel,” Lucifer said, kneeling down and reaching out to him. Gabriel didn’t hesitate- he flung himself into Lucifer’s arms and laughed. With growing apprehension and no small amount of jealousy, Michael watched and waited. When had he last heard Gabriel laugh without having it coloured with frustration, spite, or exhaustion.

 

“Michael.” With Gabriel content in his arms, Lucifer was true to his reputation as the most beautiful of all of the angels, the morning star. He smiled and it seemed that even the ocean quieted down, eager to hear his voice.

 

Michael attempted to focus on the problem at hand, but that was infinitely more difficult with his brothers looking like they belonged together as they were, glowing and perfect and of the land as surely as the sand, ocean or sky.

 

“What has happened to him?” Michael asked, unable to tear his eyes from them.

 

Lucifer bounced Gabriel in his arms, smiling as Gabriel shrieked with laughter. Lucifer freed an arm and stroked Gabriel’s cheek, kissed his forehead.

 

Michael crossed his arms.

 

“Looks like Father is tired of trying to take the subtle approach,” laughed Lucifer as Gabriel wound his fingers through his hair. Michael absolutely did not have the urge to snatch Gabriel from his eldest brother’s grasp, because he was an angel, an adult angel, who did not feel such things with his own family.

 

Lucifer gave him a knowing look over top of Gabriel’s head.

 

Looking away, Michael suggested nonchalantly, “You could fix him.”

 

“Ah, brother,” Lucifer smiled, switching Gabriel to his other side, “there’s a balance to all things and Father’s will is not something in which I would attempt to meddle.” He gave Michael a pointed look. “And nor should you.”

 

Michael gave up on trying to smother his feelings in front of his brother. With a frustrated frown he said, “Still, the message is too subtle.”

 

Lucifer laughed joyously, setting Gabriel down amid his protests, and Michael found himself smiling in response. That warm feeling that being in Lucifer’s presence always gave him lit him up from the inside, precious and delicate as a candle.

 

“Your brother is no more mystery than you, yourself are, Michael.” Lucifer walked up to him and placed a hand on the back of his neck, leaning in so their foreheads touched. “Stop making this more difficult than it is. He is made of celestial ashes, stubbornness and love, brother. The same as you.” Lucifer kissed his cheek before hugging Gabriel again.

 

With a final kiss to Gabriel’s forehead, Lucifer departed. Michael crouched down as Gabriel crept closer, both of them feeling the same low that always came over them when Lucifer left. Michael took Gabriel into his arms, held him close, and let himself enjoy it this time.

 

 

 

 

 

“What are we going to do, brother?” Gabriel asked as Michael placed him on the bed in the house in which Michael had found Uriel and him in.

 

Gabriel watched silently as Michael busied himself, opening the blinds and gathering blankets, smothering the fire from the fireplace and lighting a candle before placing it on Gabriel’s bedside table.

 

Carefully, Michael pulled back the blankets and let Gabriel scurry underneath. Then, Michael sat himself on the edge, took off his shoes, and slid himself under the blanket as well. He lay there, rigidly, until Gabriel cautiously crept closer, wrapping his arm around Michael and nestling his head under his brother’s chin.

 

Michael gave a silent sigh and wrapped his arm around Gabriel, kissing the top of his head and reveling in his soft presence in the back of his mind.

 

“Now, we will sleep. And when tomorrow comes, we will do as Father wills.”

 

Gabriel closed his eyes and slowly, quietly, began to sing. Michael let the song wash over him, let himself feel the pull inside of his chest, creating a new memory, and with a final look at his brother, Michael leaned over and blew out the candle.

 

 

 


End file.
